


and we tumble to the ground (and then you say)

by loveleee



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Pre-Catching Fire, Smut, canon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:14:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And I’m excited to introduce you to my brothers,” Peeta adds, flashing me a grin as he squeezes my hand. “But most of all…” He lowers his voice. “I can’t wait to get you alone.” He punctuates that remark with a soft kiss right on my neck, leaving no doubt as to his meaning.</p><p>(Pre-Catching Fire; Katniss never comes clean to Peeta about their relationship. Originally written for the F4LLS charity drive.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

_Then Peeta’s there looking handsome in red and white, pulling me off to the side. “I hardly get to see you. Haymitch seems bent on keeping us apart.”_

_Haymitch is actually bent on keeping us alive, but there are too many ears listening, so I just say, “Yes, he’s gotten very responsible lately.”_

_“Well, there’s just this and we go home. Then he can’t watch us all the time,” says Peeta._

_I feel a sort of shiver run through me and there’s no time to analyze why, because they’re ready for us._

_\- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins_

* * *

**and we tumble to the ground (and then you say)**

“What’s wrong?” Peeta asks.

“Nothing,” I answer.

We walk out past the end of the train, and though I’m nearly certain the Capitol’s microphones won’t pick up our voices from here, still no words will come. How can I say what I’m feeling to Peeta? How can I explain that my feelings don’t run quite as deep as I’d pretended to the boy who risked his own life for mine without a second thought?

There’s only one answer to that question: I can’t. At least, not until we’re back in District 12 and things have calmed down. In a few weeks, when the cameras have gone and I’m back to my surly, plain-faced self, Peeta will realize that I’m not who he thought I was. And we’ll get on with life as best we can.

As selfish as it sounds, I’m not completely unaffected by the thought that Peeta’s adoration for me will fade. There were moments in the arena when comforting Peeta, flirting with Peeta, touching Peeta, felt so natural that I wasn’t _completely_ certain that I was putting on a show, after all. Even if we’re not truly in love, I care for him. And maybe, if things were different…

“Penny for your thoughts?” Peeta’s soft timbre breaks me out of my thoughts. He leans in to my side affectionately, brushing a wisp of hair away from my cheek.

“They’re worth at least a hundred now. Didn’t you know I’m a victor?” I joke half-heartedly. Peeta smiles.

“I guess that makes me the only one who could afford them.”

“You and Haymitch,” I point out.

“He’s saving all his pennies for his next drink.” I don’t have a good retort to that, so I just smile a little and focus on the little bouquet of wildflowers in my hand.

“Are you excited to go home?” he asks, leaning back on his elbows in the grass.

My forehead creases slightly as I consider the question. On the one hand: of course. This is what I’d wanted. I’m coming homefrom the Hunger Games. I’ll have enough money to feed my family for the rest of our lives, and then some.

But on the other hand…I don’t know for sure what I’m coming home _to_. My mother and Prim, sure. But how will the rest of District 12 treat me? Will I still be able to hunt in the woods and barter for goods at the Hob, or will my notoriety make it too great a risk?

And then there’s Gale.

“Yes,” I say simply. “Are you?”

“Very much,” he says with a contented sigh. He pauses for a moment. “I’m really looking forward to meeting Prim.”

It’s not something I’d really thought about before, but the idea of Peeta and Prim meeting in person makes me feel a little funny inside. Prim’s so guileless, I’m sure she thinks everything that happened between Peeta and me was entirely genuine. Then again, so does the whole country, apparently.

“And I’m excited to introduce you to my brothers,” Peeta adds, flashing me a grin as he squeezes my hand. “But most of all…” He lowers his voice. “I can’t wait to get you alone.” He punctuates that remark with a soft kiss right on my neck, leaving no doubt as to his meaning.

My fingers tighten reflexively around my flowers. I’m not shocked that Peeta, a sixteen-year-old boy, would want to…do things…with me that we couldn’t do on camera. In waking, he was a perfect gentleman. But in sleep, his hands sometimes wandered beneath the cover of our shared sleeping bag. And after his body had started to recover from infection in the arena, I’d woken and felt his _interest_ pressing against me every morning.

No, what surprises me is the way my own stomach flips in response to the brush of his lips against my skin.

“We should go back in,” I say, climbing hastily to my feet. “Effie’s probably ready to blow a gasket.”

“Okay,” Peeta says easily, taking my hand as we make our way back to whatever it is that awaits us.

* * *

 

“But I’m tired, Effie,” I protest, my tone on the verge of a full-out whine. “They’ve already got shots of me dancing, eating, talking…”

It’s been eight days since our train pulled into the station at the edge of District 12. Eight days of photo shoots **,** meet-and-greets and parties that last long into the night. If these parties were for the people who actually live here, I might be willing to indulge them. But most of the crowd is Capitol types, Peacekeepers and wealthy officials enjoying an exotic foray into one of the “outer” districts. It’s their only opportunity to meet the star-crossed lovers in person since they won’t be important enough to score an invite to any of the parties during our Victory Tour six months from now.

So I’m done for the night. They’ve taken what I’m willing to give. All I want to do now is go home, get out of this dress and these heels, and collapse into bed.

At least I’m not in a ball gown this time. Apparently there’s no need to get _that_ fancy all the way out in District 12 **;** even our highest ranking Peacekeeper is a nobody compared to the lowliest Capitol hanger-on. Instead **,** the skirt of my forest green dress flares over my hips, ending midway down my thighs – shorter than I’m entirely comfortable with, but a welcome change from the long, flowy fabrics I’ve been tripping over for the past several weeks.

“Katniss, darling, this party is for _you._ ” Effie’s just barely suppressing her annoyance at my petulant behavior, I can tell. “These guests are here for _you._ If you leave _now_ –”

“They won’t know the difference,” Haymitch interrupts, the ice cubes in his glass clinking softly as he sways slightly on his feet. “They’re all three sheets to the wind **,** are you shitting me, Effie?”

Narrowing her eyes, Effie crosses her arms over her chest – not an easy feat, given the stiff, shiny purple fabric tightly encasing her arms. “Even if that were the case, neither her mother nor her cousin are here tonight, and you’re drunk, which means _I_ am the only appropriate escort, and _I_ simply cannot enable that kind of breach of etiquette.”

“I’ll walk her home,” Peeta says immediately, stepping up beside me. His fingers brush lightly against the bare skin at the small of my back, sending a pleasant tickle down my spine. Ever since my mother decreed I was “too young” for a boyfriend in front of the press, we’ve become a bit more physically distant, which means Peeta likes to take advantage of these little opportunities to touch me when no one’s looking.

“Oh, Peeta, not you too,” Effie sighs dramatically. She knows to expect this from me, but Peeta is usually game for whatever small talk she steers his way. Honestly, I don’t know how he has the energy.

“My leg’s really starting to bother me, Effie,” Peeta says apologetically, scratching just below his knee, where his prosthetic is strapped on to what’s left of his real leg. “I’ve got to give it a rest.”

Our eyes only meet for a split second, but it’s long enough for me to know he’s fibbing. Talking about Peeta’s fake leg is a surefire way to convince Effie to let him do whatever he wants. It makes her so uncomfortable that she’ll agree to anything as long as it means she doesn’t have to hear him talk about it anymore. Effie purses her lips. “But Katniss’ mother –“

“Oh, let the kid take her home, Effie,” Haymitch says, rolling his eyes. “They’ll be followed by cameras the whole way anyway.” The realization that he’s probably right makes me feel a little sick.

With a heavy sigh, Effie acquiesces, and leads us through a few last rounds of goodbyes. I follow Peeta out the door when we’re finally permitted to leave, our hands clasped together. Sure enough, a pair of cameramen trail after us, just a few feet behind. My throat tightens. I just want them to leave. I want this to end. I want to be normal again.

After a few minutes of walking in silence, Peeta leans down, his lips brushing against my ear. “You want to ditch them?” he whispers.

I do. More than anything. I nod, wary of what will happen if they overhear.

“Can you run in your shoes?”

My face falls a little; the ridiculous shoes strapped onto my feet have thin heels of at least four inches, and making my way down the gravel road towards the Victors Village is challenging enough even at our leisurely pace. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay.” He keeps his voice very low. “When I bend over to tie my shoe, hop on, okay?”

I don’t quite catch on to what he’s suggesting until he’s already bending down towards the ground. “Ugh, stupid shoelaces,” he says loudly, I guess for the benefit of the cameraman. He glances at me, and it finally clicks. I scramble onto his broad back, throwing my arms around his neck, and shriek a little as he pops back up and takes off at a run.  

“Peeta!” I wrap my arms around him tighter and he hitches me up a little higher, darting down a dark alleyway between the shops surrounding the town square. I have no idea where he’s going – but Peeta grew up running through these little streets, and I trust that we’ll end up somewhere the cameramen can’t find us.

Peeta runs for another minute or two before slowing to a stop, gently lowering me to the ground. He leans back against a brick wall, breathing heavily. My veins are humming with adrenaline. We look at each other for a long moment, until I finally say, “I can’t believe we just did that.”

He bursts out laughing, and it’s so infectious I join him with my own chuckles. I’ve never really seen Peeta _laugh_ before: he does it with his whole body. He straightens up and pushes off the wall, moving closer to me.

“I’m tired of people watching us all the time,” he says. “I thought it would end once we got back.”

“Me too,” I admit glumly.  “Just one more week until the Harvest Festival, I guess.”

Peeta nods. “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve been alone since the Games,” he says.

“We weren’t really alone then,” I remind him. “There were cameras everywhere.”

“Okay, first time we’ve _ever_ been alone, then,” he concedes. He’s very close now. So close that I can see how his eyes have darkened, more black than blue in the dim light of a streetlamp. “I’ve missed you.”

My nerves prickle under my skin. “What do you mean? We see each other constantly.”

“Yeah, but…only with all those people around.” Peeta pushes a stray hair that had fallen loose during our escape behind my ear, and his hand lingers, tracing down my cheek and then falling to cup my shoulder.

He leans down and fits his mouth against mine.

Normally, kissing Peeta is nothing special. Our kisses must number in the hundreds by now. It’s not unpleasant – from my very limited experience, I’ve deduced that Peeta’s at least pretty good at it – but it’s just another part of our routine, like holding hands and hugging. Frankly, I’m not sure why the Capitol audience _still_ wants to see us locking lips at this point.

But this time…I feel that thing again. That pleasurable twist low in my stomach, the one that I felt during one of our kisses in the cave, and when he kissed my neck by the train tracks. It’s a good feeling – but at the same time it leaves me craving more.

So when Peeta brushes his tongue against my lower lip, I open my mouth to deepen the kiss, letting him in. A quiet groan rumbles in his throat, and he backs me up slowly against the wall, one hand sliding up to cradle my head protectively from the rough brick.

So _this_ is what it’s like to kiss Peeta away from the cameras.  

He kisses me, deep and slow, and when he finally pulls back, he drops his forehead against mine gently. “I’ve been dying to do that since we got back here,” he says, the longing evident in his voice.

 _Me too_ , I almost say, but it’s not true, is it? The words are pure instinct: I’m so accustomed to playing my part as the love-struck schoolgirl that I’m still putting on a show, even when there’s no one to watch it.

No one except Peeta, that is.

He seems to be waiting for me to say something. “I – I can tell,” I say stiltedly. It’s enough, I guess, because he tilts his head and kisses me again.

We stay there, pressed up against the brick wall, shifting and sighing against one another for…well, I don’t know how long. All I know is that I like it. Romantic words and longing looks and dreamy confessions of love – they’re not my strong suit. But when we’re kissing like this, I don’t have to think about any of those things. I don’t have to think about the threat I saw in President Snow’s snake eyes, or Haymitch’s warnings, or the people we’re hurting with this charade.

All I have to do is feel. And it feels good.

Eventually Peeta breaks away, moving his lips to my neck. “Come home with me,” he murmurs into my ear.

My stomach tightens. “What?”

“Come home with me,” he repeats, pulling back slightly to look at me. The corner of his mouth tugs up. “I want to be alone with you.”

I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly dry as the implications race through my mind. “But – what about Effie?” She’ll throw a fit if she finds out my escort and I took a detour…to his empty house, no less.

“Forget Effie.” Peeta presses a soft kiss to my neck, lingering there longer than he did that day on the train tracks. “Come home with me,” he says a third time, nuzzling his nose into my hair.

My eyes flutter shut as he kisses me again, his tongue dipping into my mouth, sliding past my own. The kiss goes on and on until I start to feel woozy, desperate for oxygen. I pull back, the fabric of his shirt clenched in my hands. Something is different tonight. _We’re_ different tonight.

“Okay,” I say, gasping for breath. “Yes.”

* * *

 

The Victors’ Village isn’t too far from town, but after a few dozen feet of wobbly footsteps in my heels, Peeta picks me up and carries me there, cradled against his chest. I wrap my arms around his neck for balance and rest my head on his shoulder. He’s much cleaner now, of course, but beneath the smell of the Capitol-provided soap and shampoo is a familiar, musky scent that I recognize from the arena. No matter what they do to him, they can’t entirely mask over what’s uniquely _Peeta._

The Village is silent, the only sound our breathing and the slightly uneven crunch of Peeta’s footsteps on the gravel. We both tense up a bit with guilt when we pass by the house I share with my family, but the lights are already turned off, so there’s little to worry about. Mother and Prim must have gone to bed already, assuming I’d be home late.

Peeta lowers me gently to the ground when we reach his front porch. Neither of us speaks as he fumbles to unlock the door.

“Stupid thing,” he mutters, jiggling the key in the lock. “I, um, I don’t usually lock it,” he says, but I recognize the nervous tenor in his voice, and my heart pulses with a sudden rush of affection.

“It’s okay,” I’m saying just as he jerks open the door. With a deep breath he steps aside, waving me in.

“Ladies first.” 

Hesitantly, I step over the threshold.

Even in the dark I can see that Peeta’s house is just like mine: a sitting room to the left, a kitchen to the right, and a staircase to the second floor right in the middle. He flicks on a light and I wince, squeezing my eyes shut against the brightness.

“Welcome, welcome,” he jokes, his voice lilting in a vague imitation of Effie on the day we were reaped. I smile faintly.

Peeta’s hand ghosts over my lower back and he leads me into the kitchen, pulling out a stool for me to sit at the kitchen island. “D’you want something to drink?” he asks, pulling two glasses from a cabinet over the sink, identical to where I keep mine.

“Sure.”

“I only have water,” he admits, pulling a filter pitcher out of the refrigerator. I hadn’t even known those existed before the Games – hadn’t known there was anything _wrong_ with the tap water we drank and bathed in every day – but there is a matching one in my own kitchen, three doors away.

“That’s okay.” I accept my glass, grateful, and drink deeply. We smile at one another over the rims of our glasses, the edges wet and slippery with condensation.

I swirl the tip of my finger along the side of my glass, absently forming shapes on the cloudy surface. Peeta is staring at his own glass, lost in his head. He’d been so confident – brazen, even – when we were out in the alleyway, adrenaline pumping through our bloodstreams. But now that he’s got me here, he seems to have no idea what to do with me.

I’m about to admit that I’m tired when he finally speaks. “These houses are too big for one person,” he says.

It’s true. They’ve each got four bedrooms – enough for a family of eight, if it came to it. And Peeta lives alone in his. For the first time, it occurs to me that maybe he didn’t _want_ to live here alone. Maybe his family just didn’t want to come.

And in that one small but crucial way, I am lucky, I suppose. To have a sweet, loving sister like Prim. To have a mother who’s finally starting to try, even if she more often than not fails.

I slip off of my stool and move to the other side of the island to stand beside him. “It’s stupid, but…” he trails off, giving me a shaky smile. “I kind of hoped you’d be living here with me when we got back.”

His admission takes me by surprise – we’re so young, for starters – but I wipe any trace of it from my features. “It’s not stupid,” I say, taking his hand.

“I hate sleeping without you,” he says, frowning as his thumb brushes over my palm. “I have nightmares.”

“I do, too,” I whisper, embarrassed to confess such a thing. I’ve had them for years – since my father died in the mine explosion – but since the Games, they’ve multiplied tenfold. The dreams about his death were at least predictable. There are only so many ways a coalmine can explode. But the new dreams are a horrifying swirl of dead Tributes and fire and mutts, knives and wasps and dripping fangs. I never know what’s coming.

“God, I missed you so much,” he repeats his words from earlier, pulling me against his chest in a tight embrace. And I understand, now, what he meant before: he missed this closeness. This understanding, from the only other person in the world who’s ever gone through what we went through together.

“I missed you, too,” I mumble into his chest. I did. I do. Wrapped up in his arms, tucked away from the cameras, I realize that this is the safest I’ve felt in months.

We stand there together, swaying slightly in place, clutching one another. His body has changed in the weeks since we won, grown broader, stronger. But the steadiness I sense in him now was always there, even when he was hovering on the edge of death.

Peeta’s heart beats in his chest, a low thrum under my ear. Slowly, the comforting cocoon we’ve tangled ourselves in threads tighter into tension. His heartbeats come quicker.

Eventually, I feel Peeta shift against me. His arms loosen slightly, one hand sliding gently up my back. He tilts his head, and I feel his lips brush against my neck. It feels like a question.

I hold very still, my breathing shallow. But when he drags his lips across my jaw to meet my own, I don’t pull away.

It’s a new kiss: not the one from our cave, and not the one from our stop in the alley earlier in the evening. It’s slower. Deeper. Peeta’s learning my mouth, the shape and the feel and the movement of it, and I’m learning his, too.

Peeta’s tongue enters my mouth again and he moves it in and out, over and over, in a mesmerizingly slow rhythm. I match his movements with my own, an odd sensation growing in the pit of my stomach as we sigh against one another.

We never did this in the arena. For all our declarations of longing and lust, the star-crossed lovers were chaste. But these kisses – they don’t satisfy me, not entirely. This is an entirely new kind of hunger, gnawing at my core.

Peeta grazes my lower lip with his teeth, sucking it into his mouth, drawing out a soft whine from the back of my throat. When I try doing the same thing to him, I’m rewarded with a low groan that reverberates through my entire body.

Dimly, a part of me realizes that our bodies have joined the rhythm, our hips rocking together in a slow, steady motion. When I feel him start to grow hard against my belly, I pull back, taking in a sharp breath.

Peeta gazes down at me through heavy-lidded, half-focused eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t move away.

And neither do I.

Our lips meet again, eager, sloppy, hungry. Peeta’s hands drop down to the small of my back and he presses me against his arousal. A little shock runs through me as I realize that it doesn’t scare me. I _like_ it. I like that I’m doing this to him.

Peeta breaks the kiss, breathing heavily against my lips. “Do you…do you want to go upstairs?”

Does it even matter where we go in this empty, sterile house? We could have privacy anywhere we wanted. I agree anyway. All I know is that if Peeta stops touching me, it’ll break the spell we’re under. I’m not ready for that to happen.

He untangles himself from me and pauses for a moment, then bends slightly and sweeps me up into his arms for the second time tonight. I bury my face in his neck until we reach the second floor landing, and then scan the hallway as Peeta carries me into his bedroom. It’s the same room that I sleep in at my house.

Though the rest of the house looks mostly untouched, his bedroom seems more lived-in than mine, mostly thanks to the easel set up in the corner and the little jars of paint strewn across the desk beside it. I’m surprised that he wouldn’t just use one of the empty bedrooms as a studio; but then, if his nightmares are as bad as he implied, he probably doesn’t want to go roaming in the dark hallway when he needs an escape.

Peeta stops just inside the door and sets me down before flicking on a dim overhead light. “So this is my room,” he says, a light flush settling on his cheeks. “Obviously.”

The rush of passion that swept us up here seems to have waned for the moment, and I step closer to the canvas in the corner, squinting my eyes. “Is that…?”

“You,” he confirms, stepping up behind me so close that I can feel his body heat.

I lean in, studying the canvas. He hasn’t started the actual painting yet – but there I am, in rough pencil strokes, sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag with a plate of food in my lap. He must have been remembering the day we received that feast from our sponsors, the lamb stew and rice and bread and cheese. It was as good a day as you can hope for in a weeks-long fight to the death.

“It looks just like me,” I say, slightly awed. I knew that Peeta had chosen painting as his talent; I just hadn’t known that he was actually _good_ at it.

“Well, I’ve got you on my mind all day,” he says softly, winding one hand around my waist from behind, his palm coming to rest just below my belly button. I relax back into him, a tingling feeling below the spot where his hand sits. “I’d love to draw you for real, if you’d let me.”

“Maybe.”

His little finger slips beneath the hem of my shirt, brushing idly against the sensitive skin of my stomach. And just like that, the hunger is back. I’m the one to initiate this time, twisting around in his arms, meeting his lips. Peeta keeps his embrace tight around me as we kiss, backing up slowly towards the bed.

When his knees hit the edge of the mattress he drops down heavily, tugging me after him between his legs. I bend down to kiss him, but his hands slide down my back to the curve of my ass, urging me forward. Feeling awkward, I climb onto the bed one leg at a time, straddling his waist.

He shifts backward and I lose my balance for a moment, throwing my arms around his neck. He wraps his own around my middle and nuzzles his nose against the base of my throat.

It’s strange, looking down at Peeta from this higher angle again for the first time since we were in the cave. “Hi,” he says softly, a shy smile spreading across his face. I wonder if he’s thinking about it, too.

“Hi,” I whisper back.

We’re quiet for a moment, just watching each other. “Well, c’mere,” Peeta says, and flops back on the bed, pulling me down with him.

I’m flush against his torso, and as our lips find each other’s over and over, it’s impossible not to squirm against him. His erection presses against me right between my legs, right at the spot where the mounting pressure feels _so_ good.

Peeta groans into my mouth. “You feel so good,” he says, echoing my thoughts as his hips rise gently against me. His hands slip down my waist and onto my bare thighs, pushing the flimsy skirt of my dress up as his hands slide higher. It was so hot out today that I’d refused to wear stockings, much to Effie’s dismay, but she’d been in such a rush to just get me out of the house that she gave up that particular battle.

I jump when Peeta’s hands cup my ass, his fingers pressing into my skin through the thin, lacy fabric of my underwear. My skirt is hitched up uncomfortably around my waist, but without its layers in the way there’s almost nothing between myself and the growing hardness inside Peeta’s own soft, tailored pants.

Suddenly, he changes tactics: his hands come up to my shoulders, tugging down the straps of my dress. The dress hangs dangerously low on my breasts. “Can I touch you here?” he asks, fingers running lightly over the small curves.

I nod, unable to speak. Peeta rolls to the side and I drop onto my back, letting him hover over me. He pulls the dress down slowly, his eyes darkening as my breasts are bared to him for the first time. My nipples tighten as they’re exposed to the cool air, and when he brushes his thumb over one, my eyes fall shut as my head lolls back.

“Oh,” I breathe out as his large, warm hands cover me completely. In a haze, I watch as he dips his head to my breast and takes one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently. “ _Oh_ ,” I say again, arching my back as his tongue laves over me.

Peeta moves to my other breast, his fingers replacing his mouth on the first. He pinches my nipple, then flattens his palm against my breast as he squeezes it gently.

Though at first I was unsure what to do with my hands, now they fly up to Peeta’s head, and I tangle my fingers in his hair. I don’t even realize that I’m tugging on the short blond strands until he releases my breast with a hard suck, saying, “Ow.”

I tense, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I whisper.

Peeta grins and shifts up over me. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, pulling my lower lip into his mouth in lieu of a quick kiss. “Did you like that?”

My cheeks flame. It’s pretty obvious that I liked it. But Peeta decides to find out for himself, reaching down to rub me over my underwear. His fingers are hesitant, his eyes wide, seeking permission. I just watch him, my breaths coming sharp and shallow.

When I do nothing to stop him, Peeta slips his fingers beneath my underwear, running them lightly over the slick skin. Until a few weeks ago I was completely bare down there, thanks to my prep team, but now that we’re home they don’t seem as preoccupied with my nether regions. The hair is just now starting to grow back. Peeta doesn’t seem to mind.

“You’re _really_ wet,” he whispers, sounding slightly awed.

Embarrassment sweeps over me, but Peeta only seems encouraged by my body’s clear reaction to him. He kisses me hard, his mouth open and hot, and moves his fingers experimentally against me. I gasp against his lips when he brushes past my clit, the brief touch igniting like a spark.  

Peeta breaks the kiss and watches me closely as he rubs his fingers over that spot again. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’ve touched myself like this a handful of times, when I was left alone in the house and felt bored. Nothing ever came of it. Now, though, the pleasure doesn’t just plateau – it builds.

I gasp when Peeta slides one finger inside of me. It feels foreign – but also like it’s somehow not enough. “Wow,” he mutters under his breath.

It’s impossible to hold back the moans he’s drawing out of me, and I writhe beneath him, overcome by the feeling. At some point he adds a second finger, pumping them in and out of me gently in time with the circles he’s rubbing around my clit. When it becomes too much to handle, I clamp my legs together with an uncharacteristic squeal, panting.

He pries his hand from where it’s trapped between my thighs. “Did you come?” he asks, looking pleased with himself.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly.

His forehead creases. “Hmm…I think you’d know if you did.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, irritated.

Peeta laughs. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just not as obvious when girls do it as when guys do.”

I say nothing. Peeta’s mouth contorts like he’s suppressing a smile and he presses his face against my neck. “Kat-niss,” he sing-songs, drawing out my name.

My own lips twist into something resembling a smile. In the cave I’d seen flashes of Peeta’s silly, flirty side, but now that we’re really alone he seems comfortable enough to revel in it. Peeta lifts his head and smiles at me again, softer this time.

“I _am_ sorry,” he says gently. “I really, really want to make you come. But tell me if I’m going too fast.”

 _Isn’t this all too fast?_ I wonder. We’ve only known each other – _really_ known each other – for a matter of weeks. Yet here we are, staring down a future that could amount to years and years playing the star-crossed lovers. One random, hormone-driven night of passion doesn’t seem like such a big deal compared to that.

“You’re fine,” I say. “Do you want me to touch you?”

His eyes widen, and I nearly roll my own in reaction – is he really so surprised that I’d offer to reciprocate? He knows how I feel about owing things.

“I do,” he says slowly. “But,” he laughs, “I’m about to go off any second.”

My own laugh quickly becomes a moan when he lowers his mouth to my breasts again. He pauses a moment to unbutton his own shirt – he’s somehow managed to stay fully clothed through all of this – and pulls it off quickly before moving over me again. After teasing my nipples with his tongue and fingers, he starts to move south, but finds my dress in the way, now a tangled mess around my waist.

“Do you want this off?” he asks, fingering the flimsy green material between his fingers. I’m basically naked anyway, so I nod and he helps me shimmy it off over my hips, leaving me in nothing but my pale, lacy underwear.

Peeta drags his palm down the plane of my stomach. “You’re insanely beautiful,” he says.

I shake my head slightly. “Whatever.” Up until now we’ve both been so good at keeping this encounter entirely physical, but there’s a wistful edge to his tone that hints at deeper feelings.

Luckily, that’s all he has to say. I jump a little when his mouth lands just over my belly button, leaving a sloppy kiss. He keeps moving down though, and when he doesn’t stop, I grow tense. “What are you doing?”

“Ah…” Peeta looks slightly dazed, running one hand over my thigh, his fingers coming dangerously close to my center again. “I kind of wanted to go down on you.”

My face must do something crazy in response, because he sits up immediately. “Do you not want me to?”

My body certainly does: my core is nearly pulsing with need. But practically speaking, it seems so…weird. Does he really want his mouth down there?

When I ask him, his answer is an emphatic _yes_. So I shrug, and lay back against the pillows. “Okay,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the slight tremble in my voice.

His tongue touches me first; he drags it over my folds and then stops for a moment, like he’s tasting me. He must like it, because he does it again and again and again, lapping up my wetness. It feels strange, but nice; it’s nothing earth-shattering.

Then his tongue finds my clit. And then he actually sucks it into his mouth, rolling his tongue over the sensitive little nub. My hips buck so hard I’m afraid I’ll give him whiplash, but he just presses my thighs down with his hands, lapping intently between my legs.

The feeling builds – and builds – far past the point that I’ve ever let it before. I can’t see straight, can’t think straight. With my hips pinned down under Peeta’s strong hands, the rest of my body thrashes for release, my head flipping back and forth on the pillows, my fingernails digging deep into the plush comforter.

When he finally brings me to the crescendo, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced: like an earthquake rolling in waves through my body, shaking, shuddering, starting from the point where Peeta’s mouth engulfs me. If I had the capacity for thought, I’d be glad there are no neighbors around to hear my shriek.

Peeta crawls up the bed to lie beside me, his mouth wet and shiny. “That _had_ to be an orgasm,” he says, panting slightly.

I nod, sucking in a deep breath. “Yeah…yeah, I think so.”

He kisses me and I can taste myself on his lips. It’s odd, but also oddly arousing. Still in a haze, I drop my hand down between us to cup his erection through his pants. “Why are you still…?” I ask tiredly.

Peeta closes his eyes and groans a little as I rub my palm against him. After a few moments, he unbuttons the pants and pushes them down around his thighs, along with his boxer shorts. So there it is: his cock. It’s bigger than I expected.

He takes my hand gently and wraps it around his length, his breathing shallow. I watch in fascination as he moves our hands up and down together. It feels like he’s growing even harder in my grip, if that’s possible.

Peeta lets his hand fall away and drops his head back against the pillows as I continue. After a minute or two of pumping him, I bite my lip, hesitant. “Should I use my mouth?”

Peeta looks up at me and laughs weakly. “If you want. But this feels good, too.”

I’m not completely ecstatic about the prospect of his cock in my mouth, but he _did_ give me my first orgasm with his – so it’s only fair. I bend down and lick the tip of him lightly. It’s not a bad taste – just a little salty. I do it again, more slowly this time, and Peeta moans softly.

“That feels really good,” he assures me. Feeling a little more confident, I enclose my mouth around his head, sucking gently.

“Ahhhh,” Peeta groans, his eyes shut tight. “Yeah, that’s _really_ good.”

I try taking him deeper into my mouth, but end up gagging when he bumps against the back of my throat. “It’s okay,” he says, brushing his fingers against my hair. “You can just – just use your hand –“

It’s a lot easier that way, with my hand on the base of his cock and my mouth covering the rest, so that’s what I do, trying to suck him in the same rhythm that my hand uses as I work his shaft. Peeta tangles his fingers in my hair, and after a few minutes his breathing grows noticeably ragged.

“I’m gonna come soon,” he says in a rush, his fingers tightening painfully against my scalp. I kind of like it, to be honest – knowing that I’m the reason he’s so off-kilter. I start to suck his cock harder, determined to make him fall apart the way I did for him.

Peeta’s hips thrust up into my mouth a few times and then his entire body tenses, a strangled sound rising from his throat. His semen is hot and salty against my tongue, and I try to swallow it all quickly.

Once he’s finished, I sit in place awkwardly, unsure ofwhat I should do. Peeta lies with his arm across his eyes, gathering his wits, then tugs at my arm. “C’mere.”

I lie down beside him, letting him pull me flush against his bare chest. He kisses me. “Thank you,” he murmurs against my mouth.

I kiss him back lazily, feeling relaxed, enjoying the warmth of his hand as it skims lightly up and down my back. Much sooner than I expect, I feel his cock twitching against my thigh. I break the kiss and raise my eyebrows in surprise.

Peeta flushes a little. “You’re really sexy,” he says defensively.

I laugh. “And really tired.”

“Understood. I’ll behave.” He kisses me once more, but keeps it short, and shifts onto his back, pulling me in so that my head rests on his chest. I can feel the slow thud of his heartbeat just under my cheek. His other arm rests over my stomach.

I know I shouldn’t, but I let my eyes drift shut and snuggle against him, ready to sleep. I’ll probably regret this in the morning, but at this moment, I think I deserve the rest – and the comfort – that I know I’ll find in Peeta’s arms. Tomorrow we can deal with the fallout. With the fact that I am a liar; with the fact that I will let Peeta touch me and kiss me, but I’ll never let myself love him.

I’m just about to fall asleep when he whispers the words I’d desperately hoped would never come.

“Do you remember what I said in the arena?”

My eyes flick open, my heart pounding. I know exactly what he means, but I play dumb. “You said a lot of things in the arena.”

“When I thought you had to kill me. Right at the end,” he says.

When he said that he loved me, he means. That he didn’t want a life if it was without me. That I’m everything to him.

“It was true,” he says. “I love you.”

“Peeta, I’m tired,” I say softly, but when his body grows tense against my back I know it was the wrong thing to say.

I’m too afraid to turn around and see how I’ve hurt him. “I…I meant things that I said, too,” I say, trying to soften the blow. I hadn’t said much at all, though, just protested through my tears while Peeta tried to convince me to shoot an arrow through his heart.

And Peeta knows it. “Okay,” he says, and lets it drop. Though he doesn’t speak again, I can tell he doesn’t fall asleep for a long, long time.

Neither do I. I spend the night wrapped in his arms, blinking back tears, clutching his hand, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.


	2. two

As I expected, the little sleep I get is the best I’ve had in weeks.

I’m alone when I wake, the sheets tucked up carefully around my side. Through the open window I can see that the sun is already bright and high in the sky. I smell fresh air, and bread.

I can’t exactly pull back on my party dress, so I open one of the drawers from Peeta’s dresser and pull a t-shirt out, tugging it over my head. It falls all the way to my knees, but walking around Peeta’s house in just a t-shirt might send the wrong message, so I dig a little further into the drawer until I find a pair of shorts he must have kept from gym class. They’re still ridiculously large on me, but there’s a drawstring around the waist, and I pull it tight against my stomach.

Peeta is already showered and dressed, of course, seated at the table with an empty plate and a cup of tea. A newspaper is spread open before him. He doesn’t appear to hear me tiptoe down the stairs, and I take advantage of the moment, watching him in silence as he takes a sip of tea and flips to the next page, smoothing the thin paper down with his hand.

After a moment I hop off the last step, letting myself land with a soft _thump_ , just loud enough that he hears it. “Hi,” I say quietly.

Peeta twists around in his chair to see me. “Hey,” he says. If he’s bothered that I’ve borrowed his shirt and shorts, he doesn’t show it. “Good morning. I made some bread, and there’s jam and butter in the fridge if you want it.”

“I could smell it all the way upstairs,” I say with a small smile, and pull a plate from one of the cabinets over the sink before turning back to the kitchen island to cut myself a few slices of bread. It’s only when I join him at the kitchen table that I realize how eerily familiar I am with his kitchen. Almost as though it were my very own – _because it is_ , I remind myself, _it’s the same exact one._

“What are you reading?” I mumble between mouthfuls of bread and butter.

“The Capitol Courier,” Peeta says, his eyes trained on the page. “I asked Effie to get me a subscription.”

I wrinkle my nose. We don’t have a newspaper here in Twelve, but even I could tell the Capitol Courier was nothing but fluff about the latest parties and celebrity gossip just by skimming the covers on the copies left by my door each morning in the training center. “Why?”

He shrugs. “There’s some interesting stuff in here. Stuff about politics.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t press him to.

As we lapse into silence, I can’t stop myself from thinking again of what Peeta had confessed to me last night.

_It was true._

_I love you._

It’s not like I was surprised. In that moment in the arena, begging me to kill him, Peeta had no reason to exaggerate his love for me. He was dying. He _wanted_ to die. There was no point in playing to the cameras at that point. Just me and Peeta, a bow and arrow and berries, and something swelling in my chest that wouldn’t allow me to let go of that bowstring.

Was it rebellion? Madness? _Love?_ I could watch that video of myself a hundred thousand times, nightlock cradled in my palm, and I’ll still never know the answer. 

Peeta is quiet while I help myself to a second piece of bread. He seems wrapped up in the newspaper, anyway, so I don’t interrupt him until I’m finished eating.

“Should we…” I trail off, unsure what I’m even going to say.

Peeta lifts his eyes from the Courier. After a long pause, he says, “Should we what?”

“Clean up,” I say. I pull his plate across the table towards me, brushing the crumbs onto my own before I stack the plates together. I drop the plates in the sink and run the butter knives under the tap.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Sure.” I twist my fingers into the end of my braid. “Guess I should go home.”

Peeta nods, pushing his chair back from the table to stand. “Is your mom gonna be upset?” he says, one side of his mouth curling up into a half-smile.

“I don’t know.” I honestly don’t. I was surprised when she made her comments about me being too young to date, back when we first returned from the Games, and up until now I haven’t done anything to test her sincerity. I suppose I’ll find out in about five minutes.

“Um, thanks for breakfast.” I take a step towards him, expecting a goodbye hug, maybe a kiss. But Peeta stands still, his face betraying nothing.

“Sure.” He smiles. “See you later, Katniss.”

I shift awkwardly on my feet, unsettled by how aloof he’s acting. “Okay. Bye.” I give him a small wave as I see myself out.

* * *

 

About halfway home I realize that my green dress and heels are still somewhere up in Peeta’s bedroom, crumpled in a pile on the floor. I pause for only a second before continuing home. Something felt completely off between Peeta and I this morning, and I need some time to work through my thoughts before I can see him again.

Luckily there are no neighbors around in the Victors Village to see me creep back down the street – none except Haymitch, that is. Of course this would be the one day Haymitch makes it out of his house before two in the afternoon. “Sleep well, sweetheart?” he calls out from his front porch, shielding his eyes against the sun with one hand. “I guess Trinket wasn’t worried for nothin’.”

“Shut up, Haymitch,” I say, folding my arms over my chest. In any other scenario I’d run the remaining fifty feet to my front door, but the gravel digging into my bare feet is too uncomfortable.

No one is around when I slip through the front door, but there are signs that Prim and my mother have already been about their day: a few dishes stacked in the sink, a half-empty glass of water on the kitchen counter. Wherever they are, I’m glad it isn’t here.

Upstairs I draw a bath. While I wait for the tub to fill I shove Peeta’s borrowed shirt and shorts under the quilt at the foot of my bed. I don’t want my mother to find them in my hamper when she does the laundry this week.

The heat of the bathwater feels unbelievably luxurious as I lower myself into the tub. It’s shameful how quickly I’ve become accustomed to life in this house. Hot water on demand…a dishwasher…even a washing machine for our clothes. We have the means to keep ourselves cleaner than any other family in the entire district, and we don’t even need it, because no one in this family will have to worry about working in the mines ever again.

I wash myself quickly with a sweetly scented soap that Effie gave me, and work the knots out of my hair with a thick, floral-scented liquid called “conditioner” that Venia swears by. But the task of cleaning myself up doesn’t take long. As I settle my back against the side of the tub and try to relax, I finally let my thoughts drift back to Peeta, and what we did last night.

I guess it would be fair to say that I’m physically attracted to Peeta. Even now, alone in the bath, the memory of his fingers and his mouth makes my stomach tighten in a way that I’m still only just beginning to understand.

_I had his_ dick _in my mouth_ , I think suddenly, embarrassment flooding through me. I let my head sink under the water, hoping it will clear my mind.

It does no such thing, of course. By the time I come up for air my body is practically on autopilot. I move one hand between my legs and move my fingers in a circular motion, my hips jerking unexpectedly when they brush directly against my clit. I’ve done this before, a few times when I was alone in the house and restless, and never managed to bring myself to orgasm. But now I have memories to guide me.

It takes me longer than it took Peeta last night, but I get there. And instead of satisfying my need, the ache for him only grows stronger.

* * *

 

I’m laying on the couch in the living room, watching the television with disinterest when my mother returns home. I sit up straight and watch as she deposits a large paper bag on the kitchen counter. She must have been grocery shopping. “Hey,” I say.

“Oh. You’re here,” she says.

_Where else would I be?_ I think. I don’t have to attend school anymore, and I can’t hunt in the woods while there are still cameras creeping around the district. I’ve hardly left the house in the past several weeks unless my victor duties required it.

“Yeah, I have the night off, so no prep work today,” I say.

She nods, but doesn’t say anything as she starts to put away the groceries. I see a bundle of carrots, a zucchini squash, a bag of rice. I’m about to turn back to the television when she speaks.

“You stayed over at Peeta’s house last night?”

My eyes flick back to her face, but her neutral expression reveals nothing.

“Effie kept us at the party really late, and I didn’t want to wake up you and Prim,” I say.

“That’s thoughtful of you,” she says, and it’s impossible to tell if the hint of sarcasm I perceive is really there, or just my imagination.

“Yeah. I got to sleep in Prim’s room – his version of Prim’s room, I mean,” I lie shamelessly. “I get why she likes the light so much.”

Mother doesn’t say anything else, but a few minutes later she comes into the room and sits beside me, placing a small cardboard box on the coffee table before us. “I got these for you.”

I look at her oddly. “What is it?”

She gestures to the box, and I open it. My face flushes. She bought me condoms.

“We didn’t –”

“I don’t want to know the details,” she interrupts me. “I just want to know that you’re being safe.”

“But we’re not…it’s not like that,” I protest weakly.

Mother says nothing, but her look says she clearly doesn’t believe me. Maybe she’s a little more perceptive than I’ve given her credit for. She nods her head towards the box and says, “Keep those,” before standing and heading up the stairs.

Momentarily stunned, I sit with the small box clutched in my hands. I’ve never actually _seen_ a condom outside of a school textbook, and now I’ve practically got a lifetime supply in my lap. I trudge up the stairs after her, and shove the box deep into the drawer of my bedside table.

* * *

 

Thanks to some kind of scheduling overlap – a high society wedding that the Capitol doesn’t want overshadowed by the now-famous star-crossed lovers – we have a whole week to ourselves before our final public display in District 12, the Harvest Festival. But since the cameras aren’t actually gone, and I can’t actually  _do_ anything with them around, I choose to spend most of the time feigning illness in bed. Effie’s in a near panic the entire time, bringing me herbal teas and brightly colored pills from the Capitol that she swears will perk me up.

She decrees that Peeta isn’t allowed anywhere near me, for fear that he’ll catch my mystery sickness just in time for the festival, which is fine by me. I overhear her side of the conversation when she calls him on the phone. It’s brief. “I thought he’d put up more of a fight,” I hear her say, to no one in particular.

It’s a relief, but as the days pass without any sign of Peeta, I start to feel a little…hurt. I thought he’d at least show up with some baked goods, maybe speak to me through my bedroom door under Effie’s watchful gaze. But then I remember what he’d said to me – and what I hadn’t said back – and all I feel is guilt.

Prim has school during the day, but she sits with me by the fire in the evening and tells me about her day. Ever since we came back, a lot of kids have been stopping her in the hallways or the cafeteria to ask questions about Peeta and me. “I don’t know what to tell them,” she admits. “Daina Limm wanted to know if you really kiss that much all the time.”

I smirk a little, looking down at my fingernails. The deep green nail polish is already chipping off from last Monday’s application. But I’m sure my prep team will have another color ready to match my dress for the Harvest Festival, anyway.

“Nobody kisses that much all the time,” I say, thinking suddenly of our parents. They kissed a lot, when I was young. But Prim was too little to remember it.

Prim frowns and watches me pick at my nails for a moment, clearly wrestling over something in her mind. “You and Peeta…are you…” She pauses. “You seem different from how you were in the arena.”

I glance up at her. The temptation to confide in her is almost overwhelmingly strong. If there was just one person I could talk to about all this, someone I could confide in, maybe I could begin to understand what’s going on in my own head. But Prim is just twelve years old. A child.  

I shrug. “Peeta’s great.”

My non-answer is enough for my sister. But it’s not enough for the Capitol reporter tasked with interviewing Peeta and me as we prepare for our joint appearance at the Harvest Festival a few days later. “We heard you two left together after Monday night’s gala event at the mayor’s house,” she says coyly.

My own face hardens immediately, but Peeta laughs it off with his usual charm. “I walked Katniss home, that’s all,” he says.

“But our cameramen reported that you two ran off on the way back –”

“There are a lot of little back roads around town,” Peeta interrupts, polite but firm, an apologetic twist to his grin. “It’s easy to get lost if you’re not familiar with the district. No offense to your cameramen, of course.”

Thanks to Peeta, the interview continues without a hitch, and I’m confident we’ll appear completely enamored with one another when the piece airs around the country. But as soon as the news crew packs up for the day, we’re left in an uncomfortable silence, though neither of us moves from the small loveseat where we’re pressed together from shoulder to foot.

“You seem like you’re feeling better,” Peeta says once they’re gone.

“Yeah.” I’d admit to him that I was faking the illness all week, but the slight edge to his tone suggests he already knows it was a lie.

“Can I say something?” Peeta scoots away from me slightly on the loveseat, and turns in to face me.

“Sure.” I brace myself, keeping my hands clenched tightly in my lap.

Peeta swallows. “Well, first, I’m sorry.” His hand touches my knee, tentative, only lingering for a moment. “I know I’ve sort of been distant lately.”

“No…it’s okay. I was sick,” I say quickly.

He gives me a look. “I still could have called, or brought over food, or something. So I’m sorry. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to think about how you were feeling.” Peeta looks down at his hands and pauses. “Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to say, which is…I guess…I don’t really _know_ how you’re feeling.”

I say nothing, but my heart is pounding so loudly in my chest that I think it’s speaking for me.   

This is the moment when I should be honest. When I should tell him about the little notes Haymitch sent me in the arena, and the invisible strings that tied every kiss back to those silver parachutes. I should tell him that love has never been an option for me – not with my mother’s blood running through my veins, and the way my father’s memory still trails after her like a second shadow.

Instead, I can’t stop thinking about how warm and rested I’d felt when I woke up in his bed. How different it was to kiss him in that alleyway, when we were finally alone. How hard and hot he was in my hand, and how my entire body had felt like a livewire under his mouth and his tongue.

Peeta lets the silence stretch on, until he finally lifts his eyes to meet mine. “I’m confused, Katniss,” he says. “I thought you knew how I felt about you. And I thought that you…” He trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

I lick my lips, my mouth feeling suddenly dry. But I owe him some kind of answer. “I do know how you feel. And…I feel things for you, too.” It’s vague enough to be true. “I guess I just feel like…we barely _know_ each other, Peeta.”

I regret the words the moment they leave my mouth, certain he’ll be hurt by the implication. That despite weeks together in the arena, clinging to the edge of life – nearly dying for one another – we are little more than strangers back here in Twelve.

But he surprises me. Eyes bright, he grabs my hands in his. “I get it,” he says earnestly. “I do. It’s why – I thought we’d come back here, and we could meet each other’s families, and eat dinner together, and just be _normal_ together, you know? And instead they’re still dressing us up and shuttling us around to these stupid parties. It’s so…fake.” His face falls a little. “Maybe we aren’t doing this right. The other night, it was too much.”

“Maybe,” I echo, though a little voice in the back of my mind is protesting otherwise. Amongst this maddening swirl of guilt and longing and fear, the one thing I know for certain is that I like the way Peeta makes my body feel. This could all be so simple, if we could only reduce ourselves to lips and tongues and tangling limbs.

“I hate saying that, though.” His eyes fall to our hands, entwined on our knees, before darting back up to meet mine. “I’ve been thinking about you all week.”

My thighs squeeze together as the memory flashes through my head. “I’ve been thinking about it, too,” I admit.

Peeta bites his lip, like he’s mulling over his next words. He leans in closer. “Was that really the first time you’ve ever come?” he asks, his voice low in my ear.

A little shiver curls down my spine. I glance around the room, hoping desperately that the cameramen didn’t “accidentally” leave a microphone behind in hopes of picking up some behind-the-scenes footage. I wouldn’t put it past them. “Yes.”

“I want to do it again,” he murmurs. “Do you?”

My eyes widen, even as I feel the twinge between my thighs intensify into a dull throb. “Peeta…”

“Sorry.” He laughs a little, dropping his forehead against my shoulder. “I know I just said it was too fast.”

I scratch at the back of his head lightly with my fingertips, the way I did back when we were in the cave and I was trying to comfort him. A shiver rolls through his shoulders. “It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t mind.”

“Will you come over tonight?” he asks, pulling back. His eyes are wide and clear, and I can’t look away. “I could make you dinner. I miss you.”

Now that we’ve more or less made up, I’d much rather dine with Peeta than suffer through another dinner with my mother, Prim, and Effie, who’s become our permanent houseguest this week. But it’s not going to happen. “I don’t think so. My mother wasn’t really thrilled about me staying the night.”

Peeta has the grace to look sheepish. “Really?”

I smile a little. “Yeah, really.” I decide not to tell him about the condoms.

“Well, I’m sorry.” He smiles at me shyly. “I really didn’t want to let you go.”

My cheeks warm. “Me neither,” I admit.

* * *

 

The morning of the Harvest Festival dawns clear and bright. Effie couldn’t be more ecstatic – about the weather, the food, the decorations, the everything. She flits around the house with her portable telephone glued to her ear, a constant stream of chatter between her and the trainload of people who arrived from the Capitol to help make today “the most glorious Harvest that District Twelve has ever seen.” (Effie’s words, not mine.)

As usual, I spend most of my day at the mercy of my prep team. Knowing that it’s our last session for at least six months, when the Victory Tour will start, makes it slightly easier to bear. Flavius clucks his tongue in dismay when he sees the small, prickly hairs that have grown in on my legs in the past week, and though I honestly can’t see the difference, Octavia’s sigh is heavy when she sees the state of my eyebrows. “Didn’t you use those tweezers I left you, Katniss?” she asks.

“I…lost them,” I say sheepishly, though the truth is they’re still in the bathroom cabinet where I left them thirty seconds after she pressed them into my hand.

Though they’ve managed to replicate it before, they ask my mother to plait my hair in the complicated braids that have become almost as famous as my face. Cinna unveils my festival dress just as she’s tucking the ends into place.

“Oh, Katniss. That’s gorgeous,” Mother murmurs, and I have to agree. Cinna has found yet another angle on the _girl on fire_ theme: this time my dress recalls the dying embers of an autumn bonfire, and the red and orange and gold of the forest as its leaves change color. He helps me into the dress as my prep team watches in rapture. The skirt is full, the bodice slim, and just over my breasts the fabric becomes so sheer it’s nearly translucent, so that it looks as though brilliantly colored leaves are growing up and over my bare skin, down my arms to my fingertips.

Peeta looks dazed when he finally sees me in the dress, in the Justice Building where we’re made to wait until it’s time for our speech to kick off the festivities. “You look…”

“Amazing. I know.” I have no problem saying it, since it’s one hundred percent thanks to Cinna’s magic. “I don’t know how Cinna will top this one.”

Peeta looks particularly handsome himself, in slacks and a reddish-orange button-down shirt that matches the warm tones of my dress, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He takes my hand and pulls me in gently for a hug.

“I don’t know,” he says, his voice low so that only I can hear. “I think you’d look even better out of it.”

By the time his meaning clicks in my brain, my face is on fire, and then Effie’s right there beside us, speaking a mile a minute about the speeches we’re about to give. I barely pay attention; Peeta’s going to do most of the talking, anyway. He watches her intently, nodding in all the right places, but I can see the red flush creeping up his neck. I suppress my smile. Only Peeta could be embarrassed by his own come-on less than a week after he had his head between my legs.

The ceremony itself flies by, one final, forgettable speech to cap off a long string of them, once again devoted to gushing about our gratitude to the Capitol. Thankfully, tradition dictates that this is a celebration for the district itself, and even the prospect of hobnobbing with Peeta and me isn’t tempting enough for the Capitol’s socialites to risk mixing with the hoi polloi. There are no strange men sliding their arms around me as their friends snap a photo, no strange women showing me their elaborate, braided hairdos, done up as tributes to my own styling. All the faces I see tonight are familiar: from the Seam, from school, from trading at the Hob.

Nonetheless, I stick close to Peeta for most of the evening anyway. He’s still my partner in this confusing, dangerous mess, and the cameras don’t pack up until later in the night. We hold hands as we chat with well-wishers, and I even let him feed me a bite of pumpkin pie.

I’d expected this night to feel unbearably awkward, but in an odd way I feel more comfortable than I have in weeks. Whether it’s thanks to the friendly, casual feel of the festival, or simply the knowledge that this parade is finally coming to an end, my heart feels light in my chest for the first time since I can remember.

Just after sunset, a few men and women from the Seam pull out their fiddles and strike up a lively tune. Peeta pulls me out for a dance, despite my protests, and we stomp and clap and swing around one another breathlessly until his knee starts to hurt. I’m about to follow him when a hand catches my wrist from behind.

It’s Gale. I smile widely, turning back to face him. “You don’t look ready to sit down yet,” he says, leaning in so I can hear him over the sound of the music and dancing.

I glance behind me, looking for Peeta, but he’s already caught up in conversation with one of his friends from school. Gale is eyeing me skeptically when I turn back to him. “You need his permission to dance?”

“No,” I say, frowning, but I let him lead me back out into the crowd.

Gale is a good dancer, light on his feet, and he swings me around to the music until we’re both out of breath. But eventually the song ends, and most of the musicians put down their instruments to take a break. One lone fiddler breaks into a soft, mournful piece that sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

I start to walk away, but Gale’s hand lands on my shoulder and I spin around. His hand slides down my arm to take my hand, his other resting over the curve of my hip, and he steps in a little closer, his body moving slowly in time with the music.

My muscles tense. I’ve only ever danced like this with one person before: Peeta. And I wasn’t trying to pass off Peeta as my cousin.

I start to back away, but Gale’s grip on me tightens. “I’ve barely seen you, Catnip,” he says. It’s true. His family has visited my new home in the Victor’s Village a handful of times, but we’ve never had an opportunity to talk privately – and the woods are out of the question until the Capitol’s cameras are finally gone.

“Just one more day,” I say quietly, glancing around us just in case one of the cameras happens to be nearby. “Then we can go hunting again.”

Gale doesn’t answer. We dance, moving in slow circles, until he says, “So you…and Peeta Mellark.”

I hope he can’t see the sudden flush on my cheeks. “Mm hmm.”

“Didn’t expect that one,” he says. “Not on your part, anyway.”

I’m not sure what to say. Gale knows me better than almost anyone – knows the way my mind works. There’s no way he fell for the show Peeta and I put on in the cave. Is there? “It was certainly unexpected,” I say.

He seems to think I’ll say more, but I press my lips together and say nothing. Gale is my closest friend – he deserves an explanation for this sudden shift in my personality, for this stranger he’s been watching on a screen for the past month. But not here – not now.

The song ends, and we release one another. Gale runs one hand through his dark hair, looking down at me seriously. “See you tomorrow?”

“As long as…you know.” I tilt my head towards one of the cameramen, who’s slumped back in a chair by one of the picnic tables, his camera settled on his lap. Gale nods in understanding, and lifts one hand in a wave before he turns away to wade through the crowd in search of his siblings.

Peeta is waiting for me by the edge of the dance floor, sitting on a hay bale. He starts to stand when he sees me approaching, but I wave my hand at him. “Don’t get up, my feet hurt,” I tell him.

He nudges me affectionately as I collapse onto the hay bale beside him. “You’re the life of the party,” he teases.

I roll my eyes as I slip one foot out of my high-heeled shoe, rubbing the arch with my thumb. “Yeah, right.”

“Was that your friend Gale?” he asks, his voice unusually bright.

I glance up at Peeta, but his eyes are trained on a long blade of hay that he twirls between his fingers. “Um, yeah,” I say. “I didn’t know you knew Gale.”

“I don’t,” he says quickly. “I just…I mean, I always noticed you, so. It was hard to miss him.”

Makes sense. Gale is tall, and he’s undeniably handsome. If Peeta really was in love with me all those years, he would have taken note of my most frequent male companion.

Effie appears then, looking frazzled, her curly blue wig slightly askew on her head. The crowd here is a little rowdier than the ones she’s used to at the Capitol’s stately affairs. “Our train leaves for the Capitol at eleven, so we need one last shot of the victors,” she says, clapping her hands together. “Up up up, let’s go!”

Peeta tugs me to my feet despite my sigh of protest, and we make one final loop around the dance floor until Effie proclaims the footage “good enough.” With a clasp of hands, kisses on our cheeks, and the promise (threat?) that she’ll be back in no time to prepare for our Victory Tour, she’s gone – and so is every other person sent here to sculpt us, primp us, and record our every move for the past two weeks.

The realization dawns on both of us at once, and as I tilt my face up to meet Peeta’s smile with my own, he leans down and kisses me.

The kiss startles me. Not because the cameras are gone, exactly – been there, done that. But last week’s kisses were in private. Now we’re kissing in front of our families, our friends, our entire district. The only people who we _don’t_ have to convince.

After a moment I break the kiss, placing one hand on his chest as I shift back on my heels. I glance to my right – few people appear to be paying us any attention, but Peeta catches on to my hesitance, and his smile fades a little.

“Sorry,” he says after a pause. “I guess I forgot you’re not really into PDA.”

“It’s okay.” I force a smile. Something has already shifted between us, as I knew it would. What I didn’t anticipate was how awful it would feel. “I’m um, I’m pretty tired.”

“Yeah.” Peeta steps back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I could walk you home?”

I look past his shoulder, to where my mother is seated at a picnic table next to Hazelle Hawthorne. Nearby, Prim is chatting animatedly with one of her friends from school. Even from here I can tell she’s still got plenty of energy tonight – it wouldn’t be fair to drag her home now just because I’m suddenly feeling awkward with Peeta.

“You don’t want to stick around?”

“Nah. I’m tired too.” Peeta leans down and raps lightly on his fake leg with his knuckles.

I roll my eyes despite my smile. “I’m not Effie. You don’t have to convince me.”

His laugh is short. “Yeah, I know.”

* * *

 

We walk in silence most of the way home, the laughter and music of the festival fading behind us in the distance.

We’ve just reached the front steps to my house when Peeta stops suddenly, looking slightly agitated. “Can I ask you something?”

I gaze up at him, confused. “Sure.”

He presses his lips together for a moment. “Did you and Gale… _have_ something?” he asks. “Or… _do_ you?”

I stare back at Peeta, trying to process the question. Before I can answer, he takes my silence for a _yes_.

“Oh, god,” he says, running one hand down his face as he turns away from me. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Peeta – no, don’t – don’t say that,” I say, stumbling over the words.

He turns back, and the look he gives me is so raw I can feel my heart cracking in my chest. “Katniss, please don’t lie to me.”

A chill runs through me. “I’m not,” I say. My voice sounds strangely high. “He’s just my friend. There’s nothing – there’s never been more.”

It’s the truth. There has never been a romantic connection between Gale and I – just the bond of survival, which slowly grew into friendship. His hands on my hips tonight…the heat I felt coming off of his body as we danced…that was the closest he’s _ever_ come to revealing that there might be deeper feelings there.

A lead weight sinks in my stomach as I consider the possibility. That Gale’s terse comments about Peeta tonight were a mask for his jealousy. That he wants more than a reliable hunting partner, and an ear to listen, from me.

Peeta’s still said nothing. I grab his hand, forcing him to look at me. “I’m telling you the truth,” I say firmly. “Gale and I don’t feel that way about each other.” Even as I say it, my stomach squirms with the knowledge that I could – maybe, possibly – be wrong.

Peeta’s eyes look lost as he stares back at me. “Okay,” he says finally, his voice thick in his throat.

I squeeze his hand and thread my fingers through his, swallowing hard. “Okay?”

He nods, then lets out a deep breath, laughing slightly as he does it. “I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I’m just…I don’t know how to handle all this. Sometimes I feel like…like you’re the only thing that makes sense in all of this. You’re the thing keeping me together. And if I lost you…I can’t.”

I wrap my arms around him then, pressing my face against his shoulder so he can’t see my tears. There are too many to hold back, though, and soon he can feel them through the damp fabric of his shirt. “Oh, don’t cry,” he whispers, one of his hands coming up to stroke my hair. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

I sniff loudly, and pull away to wipe at my face. Black streaks of mascara come off on my fingers. “It’s fine,” I say, turning my head away. “I don’t want to lose you, either.” As I say it, I realize I mean it. I really, really mean it.

“So I guess we’re on the same page, then,” Peeta says, laughing shakily.

I try to smile back, show him I’m okay, but I can tell it’s not very convincing. “Same page,” I repeat.

We stand like that for a while, Peeta’s hands running in soothing circles over my back, until I’ve got my sniffling under control. His rust-colored shirt is stained with the remains of my makeup, and I run my fingers over the black splotch uselessly. “Sorry I ruined your shirt.”

Peeta smiles, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t care.”

I shrug. “I should go to bed, anyway. I can finally go hunting in the morning.”

If the idea of me returning to the woods with Gale bothers him, Peeta doesn’t show it. “I guess sleeping at my place is out, with your mother and all,” he says.

“Yeah, I’d say so.”

“Alright. Well, goodnight, Katniss.” He bends to kiss me. It’s a quick, chaste kiss, but before I can second-guess myself I link my hands around his neck and hold him there, keeping our lips pressed together. Hoping he understands what I’m trying to say: _You won’t lose me._

His cheeks look darker in the dim yellow glow of the streetlamps when we finally break apart. “Sweet dreams,” he says, giving my hand one last squeeze before he turns towards his own house down the road.

I climb up the steps to my front door and pause, turning to watch him as he strides up an identical set of steps. He turns back just as he’s opening the door, and seeing me, he waves. I wave back before I slip inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this story is getting longer than I intended it to! Oops. There will be a third part...probably just a third part, though.
> 
> I also can't remember the timing of the Harvest Festival - is it after their Games, or after their Victory Tour? - but I don't have a copy of the book around to check, so. In this world, it's after the Games!
> 
> Most importantly, thank you for all the wonderful comments!

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the Fandom 4 LLS charity drive. I'm considering a part two, not sure when that will be finished, though.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, and would love to know what you think! :)


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